


You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

by Aramley



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-18
Updated: 2011-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:21:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five people who told Andy Murray to get a grip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Netcord Volume I](http://netcord.livejournal.com/2128.html).

**one. Laura Robson.**

They were in the green room waiting for their Hopman Cup call when Laura said, out of nowhere, "So, this thing you have for Rafa."

"What," said Andy, and "Who told you that?" and "Jesus, Laura," all in a rush, before he realised that what he _should_ have said was, "What thing for Rafa?" because now Laura was looking at him with a sly, spreading smile, the kind that spelled trouble.

"So Jamie was telling the truth," she said, leaning back against the locker.

Andy, defeated, said, "I'm going to kill him."

"Oh come on," said Laura, knocking Andy's knee with her racket. "It's understandable. He is fit."

"I'm not talking about this with you," said Andy, because he wasn't, because he never talked about this with anyone and apparently never should ever again.

"You should ask him out," said Laura, leaning forward now, eager and excited, like they were bffs or whatever the kids were calling it these days. "Go on. That would be _amazing_."

"I'm not going to ask him out," said Andy. "Jesus."

"Why not? God, I bet he's an amazing kisser. Are you shy?" said Laura. "Is this a low self esteem thing?

"Shut the fuck up," said Andy. "What do you know. You're twelve."

"I'm wise beyond my years, Andrew," said Laura, with an affectedly sage nod of her head. "And, honestly, I really don't think we want to get onto the subject of twelve year old girls, given how much you're acting like one. Except, like, fifty times more pathetic."

"Hey," said the tournament official, peeking in through the door like a messenger from God. "Five minutes, yeah? You want to come and wait in the tunnel?"

"Yes," said Andy.

"Eyes on the prize, bitch," said Laura, heading out of the door, twisting back to say, "If you win me diamonds I'll show you this article I clipped out of Cosmo Girl that shows you how to make yourself irresistible to men."

"I fucking hate you," said Andy, following behind.

 **two. Judy Murray.**

Miles used to make all these tapes, compilations of Andy's matches organised in an impressively anal fashion: tapes by surface, by tournament, by the shot he needed to work on. By opponent. There had been a brief, awkward and semi-hurt post-breakup discussion via Blackberry over who the tapes should live with before Miles in a fit of passive-aggression packed them into boxes and shipped them to Andy's mother's house, where they sat mostly untouched in a precarious stack near the TV.

"Will you do something with these?" Andy's mother said, every time he came home. "For goodness's sake. Sort through them and see which ones you want to keep, and I'll palm the rest off to Jamie."

"Fine," Andy sighed, finally, and settled in the living room with Maggie sprawled across his legs for a marathon session of his own inadequacies. Just what he needed.

The first tape was of Rafa.

"Jesus Christ," said Andy. Maggie gave him a quizzical look from beneath her eyebrows, and Andy petted her wiry side affectionately.

"Cup of tea for you, pet," said Andy's mum, setting it down on the coffee table before she settled next to him on the sofa. "What's this?"

On the screen, Rafa whipped an inside-out forehand past the head of Andy's outstretched racket and Andy remembered the feeling of it, the sinking disappointment and irritation underlain with the thrill it always gave him to see Rafa pull off shots like that, even when - fuck it, _especially_ when - they were against him. On screen, too, he could see the muscular thrust of Rafa's fist-pumping _vamos!_ , the way he stalked back and motioned imperiously for a towel.

"Miles always said I should come in more off the serve," Andy said, though Miles had never said any such thing, and his throat was dry. He leaned over Maggie, ruffling her side to hide the fact that he was blushing like the twelve-year old girl he clearly was turning into.

"Oh," said his mum, and they sat together quietly for a while. On the TV, Rafa grunted into a serve.

"Andy," said his mother, over the punctuation of the rally on the TV. "I know we've not talked about this perhaps as much as we should, but - you know I don't mind, don't you?"

Andy glanced at her. "What?"

"I mean," she said, "you know I love you no matter what."

Andy frowned. "Is this about the US Open?"

"Andy," his mum sighed, long-suffering. "I'm not talking about the US Open. I'm talking about Rafa."

"Has Jamie been talking to you?" Andy said, stilling his hand on Maggie's side. "Because like, I know he's your first born son and you love him or whatever but I am going to kill him. Remorselessly."

"Andy, honestly." His mother sighed. "I'm your mother. I've got eyes in my head. I don't know why you don't just -"

"Oh my God, I can't have this conversation with you, seriously."

"Oh, don't be such a baby. Honestly. It's like that time when you were in school all over again, d'you remember, with that little girl and you were too shy to -"

"Mum."

"Alright, alright," said Judy, holding up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm just saying that he's a lovely boy and you could do a lot wo- "

"I can't do this," said Andy, pushing up off the sofa to stalk off to his room like a teenager, Maggie yapping indignantly at being unceremoniously dethroned. "You're worse than Laura."

 **three. maggiemay_hem.**

"Hey, Andy," said Rafa, as they passed in the hall, Rafa heading to the locker room and Andy to meet his brother and head back to the hotel. "Good luck for tomorrow, no?"

"Thanks," said Andy, easy enough, because with practice enough you could fake just about anything. "Congratulations for today, yeah? Great stuff."

"What was that about?" said Jamie, when Andy had caught up with him.

"Your face," said Andy, reflexively. "Come on. Let's go get dinner."

"You're so fucking funny," Jamie said, rolling his eyes dramatically. "I suppose you're predictable enough to want the sushi again?"

They got sushi again, trading insults back and forth over spicy tuna while Jamie thumbed incessantly on his Blackberry until Andy threatened to drown it in his Diet Coke.

He didn't realise what Jamie had been up to until later, when he lay in bed scrolling idly through his twitter feed - something he did maybe once a day at most, because he wasn't a complete twitter addict like Jamie was. Or a complete prick.

 _@maggiemay_hem_  
@andy_murray in the doggie world we have a saying: woof woof, ruff woof woof, rrruff rruff.

 _@maggiemay_hem_  
@andy_murray it translates roughly to: go for it, you loser

Andy switched from the twitter client to his messenger service.

 _you are dead to me_ , he wrote, and sent it to Jamie.

 _maggie always speaks the truth_ , Jamie wrote back, even though it was past midnight. _she has wisdom in dog yrs, remember._

 **four. Novak Djokovic.**

Novak passed him a chilled water bottle, already sweating in the midday heat, and Andy took it gratefully. His shirt clung limply to his back, damp with sweat, and he might have considered removing it if there hadn't been fifty tourists with cameraphones pressed up against the fence waiting for a shot of his tanless chest for their twitters. Andy just took a long draught of the water and then held it against the back of his neck while he looked down at the glaring blue hardcourt, contrasted against the white toes of his trainers. Cold droplets of water trickled down his spine.

"Hey, look," said Novak. "It's Rafa."

Andy looked up and followed his line of sight, where two courts over Rafa was hitting balls back and forth with Marc Lopez, cap backwards and his t-shirt sweat-dark even from this distance, eyeing every ball that came back to him like it was a Championship shot, miss and die.

"Oh yeah," Andy said, watching as Rafa shanked a slice backhand wide of Marc's racket and visibly slouched in on himself with frustration. Andy traced the collapsed line of his shoulders, the exaggerated huff as he turned for another ball. "Huh."

"Andy," said Novak, and when Andy turned Novak's look was amused and indulgent. "I know you since we are like this." He made a gesture at his hip to indicate their approximate heights when they had first met. "We're good friends, no? I love you. So I know you will not take this the wrong way when I tell you to grow some balls."

"Will everybody just shut the fuck up," said Andy. He wiped at the sweat stinging his eyes with the flat of his wrist, which served the double purpose of making sure he didn't have to look at Novak's treacherous fucking face.

"Seriously, man," said Novak. "It is too depressing for me to watch you any more. You are like a sad puppy. It's terrible."

"Listen, I don't know if you like on the same planet as the rest of us, Nole, but this business we're in, it's not fucking Hollywood," Andy snapped. "It's not, you know, _gay friendly_."

"Andy, I don't say get a civil partnership," said Novak, laughing. "I just say, have some sex."

Andy pointedly ignored that. "I don't even know if he's gay."

"Oh, trust me," said Novak, with feeling. "He's gay."

Andy shot him a look. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean."

Novak held it together for an impressive five seconds before he cracked. "Oh my God," he managed, between gusts of laughter. "Look at your face."

"Jesus, shut the _fuck up_ ," said Andy, grabbing his gear together so he could leave Novak to crack up over his hilarious fucking joke. "I don't even know why I hang around with you."

"You love me," Novak insisted, cock-sure and irritatingly right. "I mean. Not as much as you love Rafa, but - hey!" he yelled, as Andy tossed his empty water bottle over his shoulder. "You are so cruel to me."

 **five. Rafael Nadal.**

Andy was pretty sure that he hadn't scheduled a Playstation session with Rafa, so he was pretty surprised to open the door of his hotel room and find Rafa there, smiling at him. His hair was damp and curling, and he was wearing a t-shirt in vivid orange, something the Nike people were probably going to market as mango sorbet, that thousands of people would buy and that nobody could possibly look as good in as Rafa did right now.

"Hey," said Andy, with what he considered to be fairly impressive calm, all things considered. "Everything okay? You want to come in?"

"Gracias," said Rafa, stepping inside. "Your team are not here?"

"No, they went downstairs for some food." Andy stood in the expanse of his room with its mounds of unwashed kits in the corners and curled his hands into fists at his side. "Do you want a drink or something? I haven't looked in the mini-bar, but."

"Andy," Rafa said, gentle, but in a way that was meant for Andy to stop talking. Rafa stepped closer, and Andy swallowed.

"I think I forgot Pro-Evo," he said, anyway. "I don't know. I could check."

"Andy," said Rafa, and stepped in closer. He put a hand out and touched Andy's arm, his shoulder, a touch somehow shy and sure at the same time where his big palm fitted to the curve of Andy's shoulder and then slid up, slowly, until it rested at the join of shoulder and neck, where Andy's pulse beat triple-time against the gentle calloused pad of Rafa's thumb.

"Rafa," said Andy, dry-mouthed, and, "I."

"We gonna be forever if we wait for you, no?" said Rafa, smiling. "We gonna be old men on television for comment on the matches before you, how you say, bring your shit together."

"You learnt that from Novak," Andy started to say, inanely, and it was probably just as well that Rafa cut him off halfway through by slanting his mouth to Andy's and swallowing the rest of that sentence, along with the little involuntary surprised noise somewhere between a gasp and a groan, and Jesus, Andy thought, of all the things for Laura to be right about, thank God it was this: that Rafa was an _amazing_ kisser.

Rafa rested his forehead against Andy's when he broke the kiss, and Andy had to look down because it was too much - because if Rafa looked in his eyes there was no telling what he might see. Because Andy was shaking, just a bit, under Rafa's warm, steady hand.

There was a place where the curve of Rafa's throat dipped down under the neck of his t-shirt, a distracting spot. Andy put a finger to it, gently, not entirely able to believe that he wasn't going to be shaken off. The skin was warm and soft, the pulse strong and quick. He curled his fingers into the neck of Rafa's t-shirt and held on, not quite white-knuckled but not far off either, like Rafa might disappear if he let go. When it seemed like he probably wouldn't disappear, Andy flattened his palm to the sweep of Rafa's collarbone. He felt the heat of Rafa's body through the soft thin fabric of the t-shirt, the rise and fall of Rafa's chest as he seemed to sigh into the touch.

"Is this okay," Andy said, swallowing around the knot of terror and want, finding courage enough to look up and meet Rafa's soft dark eyes.

"Is okay, Andy," said Rafa, affectionate. He slid his hand around to cup the back of Andy's neck, keeping him close. "Is all okay."

"Okay," said Andy, "Okay," and kissed him again.


End file.
